Vincent, your arguments are decent, but the application of the arguments to the population in general is not useful.

Look at it this way, most of use think "common sense" is a shared thought by the population in general. In statistical terms, this would mean your thoughts are very close to the mean - and in the worse case, no further out than 1 std dev.

A more rigorous approach to this would be to assume one's thoughts are 5 or 6 std dev's from the mean and then look for data that indicates this thought is indeed, "common sense".

Your arguments have a built-in assumption that the developers really, really care about doing good work. Whatever that means. If mgm't doesn't define what really good work is, then folks are left to their own devices. Consequently, everyone does good work, regardless of the "real" quality.

Therefore, it's incumbent upon mgm't to define good work. Right now, all they know (and all we are willing to help them with) is: schedule, bug count, cost & features. After that, it doesn't matter - we all do good work! My self esteem is growing by the minute!

Is it possible for Cadillac to build a quality car w/ inferior parts? Does each component manager ignore the internals of their parts and rely on the good graces of the engineers to "do the right thing"? Would you like medical software or your IRA to be build in this manner?